Eastbourne Greenpeace Group to deliver origami fish to Parliament in fishing nets

The Eastbourne Greenpeace Group is set to send notes on origami fish to Parliament in big fishing nets to raise awareness about protecting the oceans.

At stalls in Eastbourne and Seaford the group collected 72 personal messages from people explaining why they care about conserving the oceans.

The notes are to be delivered to Parliament in mid-September.

On July 24 and August 1 volunteers from Greenpeace Eastbourne Group celebrated the launch of the Operation Ocean Witness campaign, which is taking to the waves this summer in a new boat to confront destructive fishing.

At the stalls in Eastbourne and Seaford, local people signed the petition calling on the UK Government to ban supertrawlers, bottom trawlers and fly shooters from UK Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

Earlier this year, the Eastbourne group also hosted online screenings of Greenpeace’s docu-series Ocean Witness.

In May, hundreds of people across the UK protested against deep sea mining, and in July, Greenpeace ship the ‘Sea Beaver’ stopped bottom trawlers from fishing in the Offshore Overfalls Marine Protected Area off the Sussex coast.

Supertrawler operations in the UK’s protected areas rose significantly every year between 2017 and 2019, according to Greenpeace.

A Greenpeace spokesperson said in 2017, supertrawlers spent just 475 hours (20 days) fishing in UK protected areas, while in 2019, supertrawlers spent 2963 (123 days) hours fishing in UK protected areas.

This also included a total of 142 hours, equivalent to almost 6 days, fishing in Marine Protected Areas off the South East coast of England while in Offshore Overfalls, an MPA close to Eastbourne, these industrial fishing vessels spent 14 hours, according to the group.

A spokesperson from Greenpeace said, “Last year, 84 MPs from across Parliament, and 29 Conservative MPs, wrote to the Secretary of State for the Environment, George Eustice, calling for a ban on destructive industrial fishing in UK marine protected areas. Polling for Greenpeace by YouGov has also found that four out of five UK adults want supertrawlers banned from UK protected areas.”

The stalls will next be open on August 12, 21 and 28 at the bottom of the Wish Tower slope in Eastbourne, depending on weather.